French School Board interested in purchasing McNicoll Park Middle School

PENTICTON – The Okanagan Skaha School District may have found a buyer for a Penticton school forced to close last June due to declining student enrolment.

The Conseil Scolaire Francophone School District has made a proposal to purchase McNicoll Park Middle School and the School Board is interested, according to a media release.

The French School Distrct in the city currently finds itself in a position of growing student enrolment.

The Okanagan Skaha board has consented to a short term lease arrangement for the 2017-2018 school term while discussions on the purchase continue.

Board chair Linda Van Alphen says the proposal is in the early stages and a firm price for the school has yet to be determined.

She says the Conseil Scolaire Francophone trustees asked that the proposal be made public because residents were asking about the fate of the school.

Van Alphen says the school has already been used for some classes as the French School District’s Ecole Entre-Lacs, located next door, is "bursting at the seams."

Pascale Cyr with the Francophone School District says they have used Ecole Entre-Lacs for the past 12 years and can no longer expand in the facility.

With McNicoll, programs for the secondary levels will be developed to allow more eligible students to attend French programs. Cyr says the potential enrolment for the French school would be around 330 students.

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